Harper football ready for postseason
Harper College now has the chance to return the feeling to Joliet Junior College.
Last year the Hawks lost their football season opener and Region IV semifinal playoff game to the Wolves.
This year the top-seeded Hawks (8-1), ranked seventh by NJCAA/JCFootball.com and 16th by JCGridWire (which includes California schools), are looking to complete the sweep when they host fourth-seed Joliet (4-5) at 1 p.m. Saturday.
A win would put the outright Midwest Football Conference champions in the Region IV title game and make Harper bowl eligible.
"We just want to go bowling and we really don't care where," said Harper coach Dragan Teonic. "But right now our No. 1 focus is Joliet. Our players have done an outstanding job of focusing on Joliet and not looking ahead."
The combination of an opportunistic defense and special teams fueled Harper's 45-14 win two months ago.
Freshman quarterback Chris Walley has thrown for 1,337 yards, 10 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. Tim Huguley (414 yards, 3 TDs) and Warren product Mitchell Moore (179 yards, 3 TDs) lead the running game.
"They're still very talented," Teonic said. "They have a slew of good receivers and they're scary."
Harper quarterback Garrett Barnas (2,048 yards passing, 20 TDs; 548 rushing, 7 TDs) should be ready to go after he was hit on the elbow by a helmet in last week's win over Rock Valley. And Teonic is glad to have a sophomore backup in Matt Brandt.
One area the Hawks need to clean up is turnovers after they committed 5 last week.
"We haven't done anything like that all year," Teonic said. "Other than that they're really putting it all together and doing well."
If Harper wins it would host the Region IV championship Nov. 8 against the winner of No. 3 Grand Rapids at No. 2 College of DuPage.
A final tuneup: The Harper women's volleyball team (40-13) moved up to No. 2 in the NJCAA Division III poll and earned the top seed for the Region IV tournament Nov. 7-8.
This weekend the Hawks return to Wisconsin-Whitewater for a tournament and their final regular-season matches.
Harper went 5-0 last weekend at Whitewater with a win over previously No. 2 ranked Madison Area Technical College.
Then the Hawks reached 40 wins for the first time in their last home match with a 5-game win over McHenry County College, ranked No. 19 in Division II.
"Our schedule has intentionally been put together every year to get tougher and tougher at the end," said Harper coach Bob Vilsoet. "To be 40-13 against the toughest schedule I could muster says we're going pretty darn good here.
"We're coming through against those tough teams so that's very encouraging."
Anie Fitzpatrick also gave Harper its second straight NJCAA Division III player of the week. Fitzpatrick averaged 3.93 kills and 1.07 digs per game at Whitewater.
Sophomores Nikki Maize, Christy Lima, Diane Janik and Aprille Richter were honored before the McHenry match and freshman Alyssa Collins sang the national anthem.
Breaking away: The top five runners from the Harper and College of DuPage men's cross country teams finished at 28 points apiece in the NJCAA Region IV Division III meet Saturday at Moraine Valley.
The tiebreaker was each team's sixth runner and an 11th-place finish by Alex Cirillo (Hoffman Estates) gave Harper the title.
Chris Hoffman (Hoffman Estates, second, 28:32) and Sagar Patel (Palatine, third, 28:44) earned all-region honors. Mike Bruno (Fremd, sixth), Josh Perez (Hoffman, eighth) and Dan Hernandez (Hoffman, ninth) led the team to the NJCAA national meet Nov. 8 in Warwick, R.I.
Paul Paynter received Region IV coach of the year honors.
Irene Villadares (Buffalo Grove) won the women's race in 20:13 to lead four Harper runners in the top six. Maggie Banasik (Elk Grove, third) and Elisse Loenc (Barrington, fourth) also earned all-region honors.